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How eBay banned some users by mistake?

The eBay has confirmed for the suspended a "small number" of users by mistake on December 3rd. The platform has since acknowledged the incident, noting that users who were accidentally suspended have received a notification so they can resolve the issue. The company did not provide a cause and reveal the extent of the problem, but said it had fixed the slip-up and notified those affected.

There may have been a significant number of victims. Reddit users devoted a large thread to the bans, noting that there weren't any potential red flags for at least some of the accounts. People were suspended even if they had excellent buyer and seller histories or hadn't used eBay for years. Those who contacted eBay were denied appeals and, at least once, told they put eBay users "at risk."

While it's not always clear what prompts unintentional bans, incidents like these underscore the limits of moderating internet services. Companies often have to lean on automated moderation to handle the sheer scale of content, and those human moderators that are available can still make mistakes. Gaffes like this are rare, but might be difficult to avoid without double-checking decisions.

Users across social media began reporting that they’ve been suspended from eBay on Friday, despite not knowingly breaking any rules on the platform. An entire Reddit thread on r/ebay is dedicated to the issue, and although the original post has since been deleted, dozens of other users have added their own experiences to the thread. One user describes their own account of the situation, much of which is echoed by other comments:

Suspended tonight with no chance of appeal, did an online chat and the woman just told me it wouldn’t be discussed and then cut me off. Member since 1999, 100 percent positive, haven’t sold anything for years, no disputes, have bought five small items over the last month with no issues.

Other users claim that eBay canceled their bids on products that they’ve already purchased and received, some of which were “Buy It Now” items, which users can buy outright. As for the justification for these bans, users say they got an email from the company saying that they put the eBay community at risk. Some users allege that when they contacted eBay’s customer service about it, their bans were upheld, and no further information was given to them.

Outside of Reddit, users across Twitter also complained of the seemingly random suspensions that took place on the 3rd. The next day, eBay responded to some of the reports, noting that users can DM on Twitter account with their information to sort out the issue. On December 3rd, a small number of eBay accounts were inadvertently suspended said eBay spokesperson Trina Somera in his statement to The Verge. The issue has been resolved and any users who need to take action have been notified. We regret any concern this may have caused.

Although eBay has acknowledged the issue, we still do not know how many users were accidentally suspended, as well as why this occurred. Nevertheless, we can speculate that the mass suspensions might have been caused by some kind of error with eBay’s algorithm.